Interesting Divine Appointment

Had an interesting, divinely orchestrated, and very precise appointment this morning that I wanted to share here.

It is raining this morning where I live, but I was determined to get my one-hour walk in despite the steady rain.  So, I grabbed my umbrella and off I went.  As you can imagine, not a lot of foot traffic in the neighborhood on a rainy Sunday morning at 730AM.  Part of my routine walking path takes me around the local YMCA parking lot, which was completely empty when I arrived today because the Y is not even open that early on Sunday.  Empty, that is, except for one truck towing a small enclosed trailer.  As a I saw the truck backing up to the front door, it dawned on me that this was a local church beginning its Sunday morning set-up routine as a tenant at the Y for Sunday service.

Well, as the Lord would have it, my walking circuit crossed paths precisely with the guy driving the truck as he was getting out of his pick-up.  Without much prior thought on my part, I felt prompted to say to him, “Tell your people that Jesus Christ is coming back very, very, very soon.”  His response to me was an almost reflexive, “Could be,” in a tone that carried with it, at least as I heard it, an implicit but unspoken connotation of that often-used-as-an-excuse-to-give-no-thought-to-the-lateness-of-the-hour scripture, “no man knows the day or the hour.” That is how it struck me immediately as soon as he said it.   As I recall it now, my immediate and only response to him was to simply and emphatically say, “Warn ‘em.”  I did not break stride in my walking and did not feel led at all to stop and engage the man in deeper conversation.

As I walked away, I could not help but wonder about how the scene looked from that man’s perspective.  It is early on a rainy Sunday morning.  The parking lot is expectedly deserted.  And yet, at the precise moment this man gets out of the truck, here comes an older man walking in the rain, who speaks a direct word to him admonishing him to tell his people, those attending his church, that Jesus Christ is coming back, very, very, very soon.  (Very 3X as I recall it.)  And then, after adding an emphatic, “Warn ‘em,” the man walking in the rain does not break stride and disappears around the corner, never to be seen again.

If I would have been just 15-30 seconds ahead on my pace in walking, I would already have passed the front door of the YMCA by the time he got out of the truck and would almost certainly not have had the opportunity to speak to him.  No doubt in my mind, God’s precise timing at work.  How kind of God.  May the Lord be glorified and use that exchange to wake some folks up to the lateness of the hour.  Maranatha!!!